New, Uncategorized or Both

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This chapter is the place where pages which have not been assigned a place in the book hierachy will first appear. They will move to other chapters as the way the posts should be organized become more obvious.

Affiliated Domains:

You are African. Why do you focus on India so much?

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In summary it is down to the fact of the features of colourism in India manifesting in the American setting, and then creeping into Africa.

Let us consider the nature of colourism in three different parts of the world, Europe, Africa and Asia. In Asia. In the case of Africa I am referring to Sub-Saharan Africa and with Asia I am referring to Indian subcontinent in particular.

I focus on these three regions in particular on account of ther racial and ethnic homogeneity, although in India an allowance has to be made for caste differences.

In Europe let us consider the case of blondes vs brunettes. As the saying goes, "gentlemen prefer blondes, but marry brunettes". In Europe the preference for blondes is basically cosmetic. A blonde is considered prettier but not necessarily worthier.

In Africa too the same applies. A lighter skinned woman may be considered more physically attractive, but the ebony complexioned woman is not considered less worthy as a woman. Admittedly some changes appear to be occurring here where light skin is due to white Eurasian admixture. How much of is due to the proliferation of video vixens in hip-hop videos is nothing I can be sure of.

It is India is where the situation is entirely different. In India to be a dark-skinned woman is not just about being less beautiful, or ugly to all intents and purposes. It seems to be treated as the effect of a karmic sin, where her suitability as a wife, a mother and homemaker is open to question, where her worthiness as a female of the species is held in doubt.

It is expressed in cases examples like these:

The parents tell the friends of girl not to play with her on account of her complexion, in her presence (In truth this probably happens to boys as well)

A person outrightly declines, or relucts to make physical contact with a blood relative or an in-law on account of their dark complexion.

Girls are denied roles in school plays because they are the wrong complexion.

Strangers make direct disparaging comments to a girl, or make disparaging comments within earshot with the intention that she hears them. It as though the girl harbours or embodies an unwelcome spirit, or her body is the expression of an unwelcome ancestral feminine presence.

Female relatives and acquaintances express the sense of the girl being socially handicapped and wanting in some way, and offer all kinds of advice and treatments for the condition

A girl is told that her father and grandfather went into mourning for months when she was born with an Aquitaine red complexion.

For me parents and relatives who express such attitudes, or are even tolerant of such expressions within their social environment even though they don't express such attitudes themselves are being disloyal to their girls, regardless of how much they love and care for them. It as though no matter how much they love their girls, a deference or loyalty to some social or cultural beliefs and attitudes comes first. This for me is wholly unacceptable, and I express the sentiment irregardless of how much my opinions carry weight or are accepted within such communities.

I see this state of affairs as being rooted in the fact of Indians being biracial, with the light-skinned Indians being the whites and dark-skinned Indians being the blacks. So the colourism towards dark-skinned women in particular is really the hostility rooted in the era when the blacks and whites were separate. Having come together through miscegenation, that hostility is taken out against the darker-complexioned women who express those original differences in their complexion. This is irrespective of the fact that the genes for complexion are a minuscule portion of the whole human genome. I have the suspicion that an earlier generation of dark-skinned women may have been quite hostile to the miscegenation later and current generations suffering from the ensuing resentments.

For me this state of affairs is morally wrong because a community has a duty to motivate and inspire their offspring, both male and female to attain their full potential and this attitude is a betrayal of that duty on the most specious of grounds.

Among the African diaspora ie in the USA, I am beginning to see this shift away from colourism bound to perceptions of beauty, to one based on perceptions of a woman's fundamental worthiness as a woman simply on account of being black, the association with a karmic fault, and the ensuing effect on their self-esteem and even destructive behaviours which arise from those sentiments.

The current situation in America is more the result of the pressures being placed on a black community by a totally white controlled media and economic structure. India is not ruled by white people, so the colourism must be the result of a biracial or outwardly biracial power structure being disloyal to its own kind, its darker-skinned females in particular. It is either that a society which is riven by unthinking loyalty and attachment to old prejudices, or one in which some elements within a people who were forced together by practical need or unyielding cultural regulations still have at heart the original seeds of their hatreds, and continue to take out that on Black females.

For a community in which one expects to see a psychic unity, a psychic cohesion, this structural fault expressed in the oppression of women is unacceptable. The emergence of something like that within the American population, and the sense that something may develop Africa where there is hardly a population which may be regarded as biracial (Sudan being the exception) is the cause for this focus. It has to be dissected as much as possible for the faults within it to be seen, so societies which haven't gotten to that state can examine themselves better and check themselves from falling into that state.

I hope this short answer explains my reason well enough, and as I have mentioned earlier, caveats apply.

Vogue's genocidal proclivities - Part 1

ExhibitE: Black Men and Gods, Marco Polo

For when boys or girls are born in this province you must know that they are born black, but not as black as they are made afterwards. Because it is true that when the infant is born he is born fair; but they anoint him once every week with sesame oil and that is how they make them become more black than they were born a great deal, so that they become as black as a devil. For I tell you that in that country he who is more black is more precious than the others in beauty and is held better than the others who are not so black. And again I tell you another thing. For I tell you quite truly that they make those people have all their gods and their idols portrayed and painted very black, and the devils they paint white as snow. For they say that God and all the saints are black; and they speak of their God and of their saints; and they say that the devils are white. And so they portray and paint them in such a way as you have heard; and again I tell you that they make images of idols all black. And you may now that the men ..

Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

ExhibitB:vogue - meaning (OED)

1The prevailing fashion or style at a particular time.

‘the vogue is to make realistic films’

More example sentences

‘The popularity of the stage ballet intensified a vogue for social dancing and for the staging of private divertissements in the homes of the nobility and the bourgeoisie.’

‘His brilliant, fluid landscape sketches in oils and watercolour were inspirational and he helped create a vogue for ‘troubadour’ subjects.’

‘There is something of a vogue at the moment for producing regional and global environmental histories.’

‘Colleagues in the fields of literature and film will likewise draw our attention to the vogue for sequels and prequels based on works written by others long after the involvement of the original author.’

‘This created a vogue for such biographies in which the fictional element became progressively greater until the world saw the emergence of a new genre - the novel.’

‘But despite the thrills of modern technology, today the vogue for antique timepieces is big business, with collectors spending serious money on complex, hand-crafted gems.’

‘The current vogue for silent film screenings accompanied by live music is truly international.’

‘By the 1980s people were sick of chemicalised foods, and a vogue for real bread, real beer and organic products grew up.’

‘Collectors and antiquarians were largely responsible for the vogue for collecting antiquities that took root in the eighteenth century.’

‘In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a vogue for the building of follies on the estates of landowners.’

‘It initiated a vogue for revenge theatre that lasted for decades, and it shares many elements with the greatest of all revenge tragedies, Hamlet.’

‘The religious architecture of the twenties might have been dubbed the era of ‘more is more,’ long before ‘less is more’ became the vogue.’

‘After his sojourn at Versailles, he brought with him a vogue for French and Continental cuisine.’

‘The sensational painter of Biblical disasters, John Martin, was one of many who enjoyed a wide vogue in reproduction.’

‘During the 1890s there was a vogue for things Spanish that encompassed everything from music and dancing to flamenco dresses.’

‘The Hyacinth enjoyed a vogue in the 18th and early 19th centuries, grown not only indoors and out but used as ornaments for women's fashions and even as a pharmaceutical.’

‘There was a vogue for animal painting in Munich at this time, but Marc's approach was radically different to that of any of his contemporaries.’

‘There was a brief vogue for black brick in the 60s, and all the buildings looked just like this.’

‘The 18th century experienced a vogue for ‘sympathy’ or fellow-feeling, explored by Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as David Hume and Adam Smith.’

‘Apparently there was a vogue for mandolins when she was a young girl, and she had one.’

‘However, he said, as part of the Government's commitment to urban generation, parks were in vogue again.’

‘Incentives were in vogue even in the early 1950s.’

‘Trends in gardening come and go, but individuality and aesthetics will always be in vogue.’

‘Commercial property is also back in vogue with UK fund managers.’

‘Indian art definitely seems to be in vogue.’

‘This system, in vogue during the colonial era, enabled the colonial powers to carve out their own commercial spheres of influence in the countries within their imperial domain.’

‘Nowadays, with e-commerce in vogue, flowers, cards and all sorts of gifts can be purchased and dispatched through a wireless network to the other part of the world.’

‘City living is back in vogue.’

‘In fact, a lot of American things are still in vogue.’

‘Of course, we also got lucky because what we do is in vogue at the moment.’

‘The cocktail was back in vogue, Broadway was booming, and new restaurants and nightclubs were opening every week.’

‘It was established by a Japanese gardener at the time the house was built - when such gardens were in vogue - but over the years has become more anglicised, added to and replanted by Lady Sandberg.’

‘Preservation of old growth forest wasn't in vogue at the time, according to Graham.’

‘The military coup may be a thing of the past, but the popular coup is in vogue.’

‘Sharp tailored suits are very much in vogue at the moment.’

‘A clerk announces that Candide will not be given a proper burial if he doesn't accept the religious practices in vogue at the time.’

‘Bellbottoms, beads and long hair will be back in vogue for a night of hippie nostalgia in the Ridgepool Hotel on Saturday night week next, October 30th.’

‘Trips to India seem to be in vogue with people I know.’

‘In the late '80s, the miniskirt became very stylish, and nowadays, clothes that expose the shoulders, the back and sometimes the belly are in vogue.’

‘Dance films were in vogue in the 1980s.’

Synonyms

fashionable, in fashion, voguish, stylish, in style, modish, up to date, up to the minute, modern, ultra-modern, current, prevalent, popular, in favour, in demand, desired, sought-after, all the rage, trendsetting, chic, smart

‘The crunch leaves of autumn had shrivelled and the sun was a lazy, dusky peach colour.’

‘They were concerned about her dusky complexion and how that would affect her prospects in landing a good catch in the marriage market.’

‘She feels that Malayalis, with their dusky complexion, stand a good chance in modelling.’

‘This room is decorated in dusky pink colour with another sash window.’

‘Walking slowly towards him in the dusky red twilight was the last man he really needed to see now.’

‘The old cafes are still local favorites, but now it's also possible to watch a dusky red sunset filtered through a mellow golden Chardonnay at several very good restaurants.’

‘Dead muscle is dusky in colour, shows little tendency to bleed, and does not contract to forceps pressure.’

‘The lesions are bright to dusky red and reach up to 1.5 cm.’

‘We are standing in a spacious kitchen painted a dusky pink colour that, were it a lipstick or nail varnish, would be called Plum Beautiful or Berry Sorbet.’

‘Its paints are quite chalky, which gives a softness that means you could venture into greens or dusky reds without making the hallway feel dark.’

‘Colour is important from dusky pastels through to the darkest hues.’

1.1dated Used in euphemistic or poetic reference to black or other dark-skinned people.

‘a dusky Moorish maiden’

More example sentences

‘If there's a dusky maiden to rub on the sun oil, so much the better.’

‘One of my English correspondents has recently spent a couple of months in Indonesia and mentioned with approval the dusky maidens there.’

‘He was probably off to meet the dusky maiden when he returned to his chalet.’

‘I wandered about tripping over palm roots and bumping into dusky maidens in my fit of jet-lag and bliss, before falling asleep among the other bodies and bright cushions.’

‘As a small crowd gathered to watch the dusky maiden play a few hands of blackjack, I asked one of the crowd whether she was a film-star or a Kiwi pop musician.’

1.2literary Dim.

‘dusky light came from a small window’

More example sentences

‘Back then, the question of water quality in the Huangpu or Suzhou Creek was not an issue and one can imagine tourists bathing in the dusky light on a summer evening before returning to the Astor for an evening meal, drinks and a dance.’

‘When I came in the dusky light of early morning they were singing, and when I opened the door they jumped beneath the tables and onto counters, their narrow legs humming.’

‘It was just getting dark as we walked along the riverside to the Taj and the dusky light falling over the Ouse added to the romance of the outing.’

‘The sun dips around 1am, there's a dusky twilight and then light again at 3am.’

‘The light was becoming dusky so I decided that sidelights were probably the way to go.’

‘And dusky sharks don't breed until they're 20 to 25 years old, after which small litters typically arrive at 3-year intervals.’

‘An osprey flying past with a fish in its talons was another bonus while a dusky flycatcher hawked insects from various perches around the garden.’

‘They go to watch sperm whales spout and dive or to swim with pods of dusky dolphins.’

‘An analysis of extrapair paternity in the dusky warbler, Phylloscopus fuscatus, revealed that females choose copulation partners on the basis of the quality but not of the quantity of song.’

‘Observations have been made of groups of up to twenty dusky broadbills building a single nest.’

‘Researchers have identified what could be signature whistles in other dolphin species, including spotted, white-sided, and dusky dolphins.’

‘To be surrounded by dozens of squawking, hissing sea birds with 10 ft wingspans was one thing, but add to that a pod of 600 acrobatic dusky dolphins and you had a wildlife spectacle to rival anything on earth.’